Startup Surpluss.in helps companies sell excess inventory

The founders invested Rs 2 crore from their savings and borrowings from friends and family to start the business.After spending 17 years helping others establish their businesses, Saurabh Rai, 39, finally decided to start his own. The idea had been building up in him for quite some time and, in November 2014, Rai along with Tarun Bhardwaj, 45, founded ecommerce startup Surpluss.in. "I have always been a micro entrepreneur. In most of my assignments, I have created a startup within a company. Finally, I decided to put my skills to realise my own entrepreneurial aspirations," says Rai, who used to envy entrepreneurs "in charge of their own destiny."

Surpluss.in is an e-retailer of overstocked, excess inventory, unboxed (e-tailer returns), pre-owned and refurbished products, ranging from mobile phones and tablets to apparels and other consumer products. "Our business is to provide branded products to aspirational customers at affordable rates," says Rai. In doing so, the startup also addresses the problem of brands' unsold inventory. Some of the popular brands/distributors it has partnered with include Samsung, LG, Xiaomi, OnePlus One, HTC, Alcatel, Xolo and Electrolux.

The founders invested Rs 2 crore from their savings and borrowings from friends and family to start the business. Summoning up the courage to take the plunge and start a business, says Rai, was his biggest challenge. Once the business was founded, he had to confront several others. "The first challenge was getting over the idea that there would be a tipping point after which we'd be super successful," says Rai. The founders gradually got used to the idea that things will happen their way only over a period of time. "We kept a close watch on how our business was growing month on month and continued to build it, gradually," says Rai.

Besides psychological challenges, the founders, inevitably, had to deal with operational issues. "As an entrepreneur we wear many hats, but as we start growing our business, it is very important to identify which one of those hats need to be passed onto others, so we can scale the business," says Rai. This delegation of responsibilities and building the right team was a significant operational challenge. "Fortunately, we were able to put together a good team," says Rai. Today, Delhi-headquartered Surpluss.in, with offices are in Mumbai and Bengaluru, has a staff of 50.

Rai's courage seems to be paying off. Bootstrapped Surpluss.in, which won the Specialty e-Retailer of Year Award in 2015, generated a revenue of close to Rs 26 crore in its first year of operation (2015). The startup is likely to break-even in the next two years. Surpluss. in, started a business-to-business channel, Bizpluss, in July 2015, to supply inventory to brick-and-mortar retailers and to help them sell their stock.

"Analytics showed us that a sizeable portion of our buyers were small retail shops and so we started the direct to retail (D2R) online channel with a focus on electronic goods," says Rai. The company's D2R business employs a hyperlocal model and provides small retailers a trading platform. "Here we plan to increase our retailer base to over 10,000 active retailers and over 100 brands in the end-2016," says Rai. More than half of Surpluss. in's revenue came from this channel.

The startup, which is looking to increase the brand range in its mobiles and tablets category, introduced apparels as a new category in September. "We have a simple and clear expansion strategy by category and customer segments. In terms of category we continue to do controlled experimentation and focus on one's that offer maximum value to customers," says Rai.

Surpluss.in is looking at branded surplus from China, which has Indian warranty support, as a category with good business potential. "In apparels, wedding lines will draw young consumers," says Rai.